The dramatic and largely untold story of the rise and fall of the great Caribbean sugar dynasties, linking the histories of Europe, the West Indies, and North America with a fresh perspective and fascinating detail.

Historian Matthew Parker discusses the history behind one of the greatest power struggles of the 17th to 19th centuries as Europeans made and lost immense fortunes growing and trading in sugar--a commodity so lucrative it became known as "white gold'--in the tiny Caribbean islands of Barbados, Jamaica, and the Leeward Islands.